


Tomorrow Belongs to Me

by thebirdroads



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22504363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebirdroads/pseuds/thebirdroads
Summary: "And from that torment I will free myself,Or hew my way out with a bloody axe!"A Kronya study.(content warning for discussion of sex work/insulting language regarding sex workers)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Tomorrow Belongs to Me

After hours of agony, she is born, amidst blood and screams, a healthy baby girl. After she has been cleaned, the midwife hands her to the mother. Noticing the infant’s fuzz of pale orange hair, a name springs to the mother’s mind, a name meaning “the color of dawn” in the old tongue.

“Kronya,” her exhausted mother whispers.

\---

Kronya is three years old, and sits on the ground outside while her mother has her visitors. Sometimes the men bring Kronya little gifts, such as sweets, or shiny baubles for her to play with, but more often than not they brush past her entirely. Eventually, they leave, and Kronya toddles in to see her mother. She scoops Kronya up in her arms and plants a kiss on her forehead. Tonight, she will tell Kronya a story of the world above.

“You’ll live your life under the blue sky, my little star,” she says, booping Kronya’s nose with her finger and making the child dissolve into giggles.

“Mama silly!” Kronya burbles, playing with her mother’s bone white hair.

Kronya’s mother laughs at that, and the two chat into the night.

\---  
“Is it true your papa saw your hair and killed himself?”

Kronya shrinks inward. She’s found that usually helps when Xanthe and her cronies bully her. She is six, and the other children in the slum have seized on the fact that Kronya, with her hair, is Different, and Different must be punished.

Xanthe is seven, and bigger than Kronya, a fact she takes advantage of when she shoves her down into the muck.

“I asked you a question, freak. Your daddy saw you and cut his own throat right there, my mama says so. He was ashamed to have a whore for a wife, she says. We should show you what we do to freaks.”

She and her lackeys kick Kronya around a bit, before leaving. When she runs home weeping and tells her mother what happened, her mother bundles her up in a hug so tight it hurts a little.

“None of that is true, my little star. Your father was...your father is proud of you. He’s just...he just can’t be around, but I know he loves us. He’s a very important man, you see, and one day he’ll come back and bring us with him to live in his palace.”

Kronya’s eyes go wide.

“Really?”

Her mother smiles and strokes her cheek.

“I promise it, my love.”

\---

When Kronya is seven, her mother falls ill. The old women in the slum whisper that it must be some filthy disease particular to her profession, and shun the house. Their hearts are not made of stone, however, and they provide Kronya with what little medicine they can spare when she comes to them begging. For three days, Kronya sits by her mother’s bed as she cries out in pain for a man called Aegir.

On the third day, Kronya awakes to find her mother cold, her eyes staring at the ceiling of their hovel. Her wailing attracts passerby, who, not unkindly, pry her from her mother’s corpse and remove her from the house. There are rituals that must be done to purify the space, and a body to burn. Afterwards, Kronya wails herself to sleep, alone.

\---

Some time after her mother is ashes, Xanthe and her sidekicks corner Kronya in a side alley and begin their usual torments.

Something in Kronya snaps.

She comes to, chest heaving, a bloody rock clutched in her fist, Xanthe screaming on the ground and clutching her eye. Her sidekicks take one look at their leader lying on the ground and flee. Xanthe’s remaining eye looks up at Kronya, full of fear. Kronya bares her teeth, and slams the rock down again and again, until the blood makes it too slick to hold and it falls from her grip. A noise comes to her from the entrance of the alley. An old man, stooped and wizened, stands there, applauding politely.

“Well done, child,” the man says, in a voice like dust. “May I ask your name?”

For a moment, Kronya stares silently.

“Kronya.”

“Well met, Kronya. My name is Solon. You seem hungry. Would you like something to eat?”

\---

Kronya is seven, and is sitting on her bed. Hers. She’s never had a bed all to herself. Admittedly, she shares the room with 19 other children, but they all have their own beds. The boy on the bed next to her bounces on his knees for a bit, and then turns to her.

“Hi. My name is Annar. What’s yours? I like your hair.”

Kronya blinks.

“My name is Kronya. Thank you. I like your hair too.”

Annar grins, his teeth and hair the same shade.

“Do you wanna be friends, Kronya?”

She nods.

“Yeah.”

\---

Kronya is eleven, and is sitting, exhausted, on the floor of the gymnasium in Solon’s estate, her sparring match (her and Annar vs Duhale and Sepri) over, her team having narrowly eked out a victory.

“You fight dirty,” Duhale gasps from his position on the floor, splayed out like a dead man.

Kronya grins and draws her knees up to her chin.

“You fight stupid.”

Duhale swats at her, but there’s no malice or force behind the gesture. Sepri scoffs and walks away.

Annar sticks his tongue out at her back.

“She’s such a snob. She’s never gonna be chosen to be one of Lord Thales’ personal guard with that attitude.”

Kronya laughs.

“I dunno, his guards all seem to walk like they have sticks up their asses, maybe she’s got the best chance of all of us!”

The three laugh, Duhale wincing as he twinges one of his cracked ribs.

\---

Kronya is twelve, and knocks Annar to the ground with a well timed kick, but he snags the front of her tunic and pulls her down after him. For a moment, they stare at each other, then their lips are together. Then they break apart, shocked. She scrambles off of him, and they stare at each other for a moment, before dissolving into giggles. They leave the gymnasium hand in hand.

\---

“Let me see him!”

“Kronya-”

“I have to see him!! Please!!!”

She shoves past the guard and rushes into the infirmary, stifling a cry of horror when she sees Annar. Whatever was done to him has mangled him nearly beyond recognition, his face almost, but not quite, battered beyond recognition. She looks at the healer, who shakes his head, eyes hidden behind the black sockets of his mask.

She wails, and rushes to his side.

“K...Kron...ya?”

She grabs his hand.

“Annar, Annar, oh gods, Annar, I’m here, I’m here.”

He gurgles, once, and falls silent.

Something within Kronya dies. She is fifteen years old.

\---

Kronya stands in a circle, with her nine remaining...classmates? Friends? She doesn’t know anymore. If she wasn’t drowning in grief and rage, she would, perhaps, question why the other half of their number perished in such quick succession. Solon and Thales himself, along with some others Kronya does not recognize, look down at them from an observation deck built into the gymnasium’s walls. Solon clears his throat.

“There are ten of you remaining. Nine must die. Begin.”

Kronya surges into action, and the next few frantic minutes are a sea of red. Eventually, she realizes she is the only one left. She should feel triumphant, but she feels nothing. She raises her blade towards the observation deck and waits.

Thales nods.

“Well done.”

Kronya smiles.

“Thank you, my lord.”

Thales turns to the man next to him.

“I believe she will suit your needs quite well, Aegir.”

Kronya’s heart stops.

“Aegir??” she cries out before she can stop herself, clapping a hand over her mouth in shock.

Solon bristles.

“You DARE-”

Thales raises a hand.

“No, it’s alright, Solon. My new champion is permitted to speak to our guest, if that’s alright with him, of course.”

The man Thales called Aegir, a fat, balding surface dweller, shrugs.

“I suppose I can play along. Have we met, child?” he says to Kronya.

“Well, not personally, sir, no, but...I have reason to believe-that is to say, um…I’m Anira’s daughter, sir.”

Aegir stares at her blankly.

“Who?”

Kronya soldiers on.

“Anira, sir. She’s my mother. She told me my father was a man named-that is, she said you might be-”

Aegir chuckles and raises a hand to stop her.

“A man can hardly be expected to memorize the name of every whore he spills his seed in, can he?”

Shaking his head and chuckling, he leaves, Thales and Solon following close behind.

Kronya stares at the empty observation deck for some time.

It is her sixteenth birthday.

\---

Kronya, newly ordained as Thales’ chosen, struts through the alleyways of the slum. With a start, she realizes she has, after all these years, returned home. A woman stands in the doorway of her old home.

“You lost?”

Kronya stares at her, and a flash of recognition hits her all at once. One of Xanthe’s cronies, from all those years ago. Rage bubbles up in Kronya’s heart, fresh and hot, and her Athame rattles into motion.

“Mama?”

A child toddles into view, and clings to the woman’s leg, as the rage in Kronya’s chest cools into a quiet shame.

“Hush, hush, go play with your dolly, my flower. Mama will be in in a bit.”

Kronya strides off, and doesn’t look back, not even when the woman calls out after her.

\---

The prisoner hangs limply from her shackles, blood red hair hanging limply as Kronya grips her chin and tilts her head this way and that.

“Hmm, I suppose she’ll do. Shame you couldn’t find one more...interesting.”

“I profoundly apologize that she is not to your liking, child. Perhaps we should let her go and fetch another?” inquires Solon.

Kronya rolls her eyes.

“Oh, settle down.”

The prisoner speaks.

“Please, please, let me go, my family has money, they’ll pay a ransom, please, I just want to go home.”

Kronya strikes her across the face.

“Do not speak, pig.”

She turns to Solon.

“Prepare her. I’d like to test it out this evening.”

Solon inclines his head.

“Of course.”

Kronya stalks out of the room, the prisoner’s quiet sobs fading.

\---

Kronya inspects herself in the mirror, an unfamiliar face staring back at her.

“This is...odd.”

“Is there any discomfort? Any pain?”

Kronya frowns.

“Well, the chest area is a bit tighter than I’m used to, and I’m not a fan of how much shorter my legs are, but otherwise fine. Nothing I can’t live with.”

Solon smiles.

“Good, Monica.”

In a flash, Athame is at Solon’s throat. To his credit, his expression does not change from one of mild amusement.

“Ah, I take it you prefer Kronya?”

“I will tolerate being called Monica on the surface, by those who do not know different. But Kronya is the name my mother chose for me. Kronya is what I shall be called.”

Solon smiles.

“Of course. One must have pride in one’s name.”

\---

Kronya nudges the sleeping girl with the toe of her boot.

“And you’re quite sure this plan of yours will work?

The Death Knight does not respond.

“Hello? I’m talking to you!”

“I AM AWARE,” the Death Knight rumbles, not moving from his post.

Kronya waits for a further response, and when none is forthcoming, shrugs and drinks the sleeping draught, then lies down next to the slumbering Nabatean child. As she drifts off to sleep, she remembers her mother’s face.


End file.
